Volume 24, Number 7 · April 28, 1977
No Wonder
By Jonathan Kooperstein, Reply by Frank Kermode
In response to Laboring Fabians
(March 17, 1977)
To the Editors:
In his review of Norman and Jeanne MacKenzie's The Fabians (NYR, March 17), Frank Kermode states that when "their great electoral moment came in 1945 the Webbs were not much interested; they went on listening to Moscow radio." It has always been my impression that, while Lord Passfield lived on until 1947, Mrs. Webb died in 1943. If this impression is correct, it would not be surprising that Mrs. Webb was "not much interested," when her "great electoral moment came in 1945"; but it would be startling indeed to discover that she "went on listening to Moscow radio," instead.
Jonathan Kooperstein
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Frank Kermode replies:
Mr. Kooperstein is of course right, and I both apologize for my blunder and congratulate him on the caution with which he adduces his evidence for suspecting it.